Inside the security zones

05/28/2010

Fences will start going up on June 7 around the inside security perimeter ringing the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in downtown Toronto as the first concrete signs of the G20 summit start to fall into place.

The fences will be similar to the chain-link barriers used during the Indy car race in July, said Toronto Police Superintendent Tom Russell at a press conference Friday morning. No razor wire will be used. Police will be able to use tear gas, he said, and while the piercing LRAD sirens will be primarily for communication, he would not rule out other uses.

The security bill for the G20 summit of world leaders on June 26 and 27 and the G8 summit that precedes it in Huntsville adds up to $1.1 billion, including $933 million for policing.

Work on the fence will continue 24 hours a day until it is finished, said Russell, who is in charge of the police G20 task force. People should be able to "move freely" around the area until the evening of Friday, June 25, he said.

The outer security perimeter, where residents and workers with access cards will have expedited access to, runs up Windsor St., east on Wellington, south on Bay, west on Front (omitting Union Station), south on York, west on Bremner Blvd., south on Lower Simcoe, west on Lake Shore Blvd. then runs north and encircles the CN tower, with a break south of train tracks (omitting the Rogers Centre). It then starts up again on Blue Jays Way and Front St., then runs east to Windsor and then north to Wellington.There will be a separate fence wrapping the Westin Harbour Castle on Queen's Quay.

The summit traffic zone, which will not be fenced in, stretches from King St. to Yonge St. to Queen's Quay to Spadina Ave., he said. The 400-series highways, the Gardiner Expressway, the QEW and Lake Shore Blvd. will not be closed during the summit although Hwy. 427 and the Gardiner will be shut down periodically to accommodate motorcades, he said.

"People will notice a significant difference in terms of uniformed officers in the downtown core" during the summit, Russell said.
The ferry system to Toronto Islands, the TTC and Union Station will be open and operating, he said. Some streetcar lines will have service limited and the Front St. access to Union Station will be sealed, but the 504 streetcar on King St. will continue to run. Portions of the underground pedestrian way beneath the downtown core will be closed from the evening of the 25th until the morning of the 28th.

The York, Bay and Yonge exits to the Gardiner will be closed on the 25th and 26th, said Russell. The westbound ramp to the Gardiner will be closed on the 27th. On Queen St., Yonge St., Lake Shore Blvd. and Spadina, cars violating parking rules will be tagged or towed, he said.
Police will be at the protest site at Queen's Park. Russell said G20 security are working with summit officials to establish a streaming service to pipe demonstrators' voices into summit headquarters will be in place.

For more information, visit the Integrated Security Unit's website here.

Vandals spray anti-G20 graffiti on a Royal Bank branch at Dundas and Spadina. PHOTO: Andrew Wallace

Severaldowntown banks were tagged with anti-G20 graffiti early this morning, just hours before security officials hold a press conference to announce traffic restrictions and security plans for the summit.

The Star's Madeleine White reports that one man has been taken into custody for the vandalism, which police describe as nothing more than a case of "simple mischief." Some photos taken by Twitter user @LateNightCam can be seen here.

Meanwhile, the Integrated Security Unit will hold their G20 press conference at 10:30 a.m. at Toronto Police headquarters on College St.

Security officials are expected to finally release the security perimeters for the summit so check back at thestar.com for updates later in the day.

05/21/2010

Summit officials announced on Wednesday that residents and workers within the G8 security zone will receive their accreditation in the week of June 21.

The G8 summit takes place at the Deerhurst Resort on June 25, so area residents and businesses will have just five days to pick up their passes. The summit's Integrated Security Unit says information on obtaining accreditation documents will be communicated through local media, the ISU website and emails.

According to Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty, there are about 200 - 300 people living within the G8 security perimeter, which encircles a wide area around the Deerhurst Resort.

More information about accreditation for Huntsville-area residents and workers can be found on the Integrated Security Unit's website here.

05/18/2010

Huntsville’s
fire chief has been reassigned following a possible breach in G8 summit
security.

It is unclear what the supposed breach was or why Steve Hernen, a
25-year veteran of the fire department, has been put on desk duties. However,
the town learned of the incident on Thursday and, following an emergency
council meeting, launched an internal investigation.

“We received that information and we absolutely had to act on it,”
said Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty, declining to comment on any details of
the probe.

The incident is a town matter and is not being investigated by
the G8’s Integrated Security Unit, Sgt. Pierre Chamberland said.

As Huntsville’s
director of protective services, Hernen has taken part in negotiations between the
town and federal government regarding a host of summit logistics — from boosting the
number of emergency vehicles during the G8 to hashing out a contract to
ensure the town isn’t on the hook for any unforeseen operating costs.

The town’s investigation won't likely be completed until after
the summit, he said, adding that the normally quiet community will be quite busy in the coming weeks.

“There are so many things going on. In fairness to Mr. Hernen, we
have to this with dilligence and sensitivity to the situation and that shouldn’t
be hurried or rushed,” he said.

05/17/2010

So, what exactly will downtown Toronto look like when the G20 circus comes to town? At this point it’s still too hard to speculate, especially since summit officials are staying tight-lipped on security details.

But looking to Pittsburgh may offer a few insights. Last year, the Steel City hosted the G20 summit in its financial district, known locally as the Golden Triangle or Central Business District. The summit was held at Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center and ran over two days, from Thursday, Sept. 24th to Friday, Sept. 25th.

Of course, there are stark differences between downtown Pittsburgh and downtown Toronto — the former is bordered by two rivers, for instance, and has a significantly smaller population than Toronto — so the Pennsylvanian city's experience isn't the best mirror for what Toronto will look like come June 26-27.

Nevertheless, high-profile international events often follow similar templates when it comes to security measures so Pittsburgh’s experience may offer a few clues as to what Torontonians can expect. The Star chatted with Michael M. Edwards, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, to get his impressions of what it was like when Pittsburgh held court on the world stage.*

What did security in downtown Pittsburgh look like during the summit?

Well, they brought in about 4,000 people and they had to find them
from, really, all around the eastern seaboard. There were folks from
North Carolina and Ohio, New Jersey...

The security presence was very visible. It was people in the full complement, with the Kevlar vest and the helmet and the billy club. And I guess there were guns, tasers – you name it, they had it. They would actually march around town, in or around the security zone. There were also the same kind of folks on horses and these folks would walk in groups of 6 or 8 or 10. Sort of marching, almost.

They were very nice to folks who would say hi to them – they weren’t mean of anything. They were more there as a show of force.

We were also told there were sharp shooters on buildings, anything that had a
view of the convention centre. Describe the security perimeters that went up around downtown Pittsburgh during last year's summit.

Ours was around the convention centre and then there was another zone, maybe two blocks away… you could go inside (the second) perimeter but you would have to pass through a metal detector. There might have been two or three ways to get into that perimeter.

In Pittsburgh’s case, they prohibited motor vehicles from coming into the core, the Golden Triangle. It was effectively shut off unless you were a resident but you could come in on a bus; public transit still came into the core but we lost a lot of our work-day population.

This map was released by the U.S. Secret Service to illustrate security perimeters in downtown Pittsburgh for the G20 Summit last year.

When did security officials announce what Pittsburgh's security perimeters would be?

Secret Service here gave us about seven day’s notice; it might have been closer to ten.

When did the security fences start going up?

On Tuesday, stacks of fencing showed up downtown and on Wednesday night, it all started to go up. Certainly, when we woke up Thursday morning (Sept. 24, the first day of the 2009 summit) the fences were all up.Was there any damage caused by protesters in downtown Pittsburgh?

We had very little. We had no damage downtown … you know, no broken windows, the damage was very light. I think with that broader perimeter there was some rioting or protesting activity but it turned out to be in an adjacent neighbourhood, up at a university. We found there was so much security force downtown that any protesting happened outside of that. Boundary areas might become more of a concern (for Toronto) — at least in our case, that’s how it happened.

Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle is bordered by rivers on two sides and your convention centre is right on the water. What was the security presence like offshore?

They had gunboats. The federal government took over the river — you couldn’t be on the rivers for three or four days. The Allegheny River (on the north side, closest to the summit site) was probably more patrolled.What was the impact of the G20 summit on local businesses?

Well, everybody wanted to take advantage of (the summit) but everything really wasn’t clear. So everyone was encouraged to stay open, thinking there would be a lot of business coming off the event itself, and that turned out to be not quite true.

You know, from our perspective, and it’s all anecdotal, I think generally there was less business downtown during that week. Unfortunately, the media was not actually afforded the opportunity to see our city or see how it works; the media never left the venue because it was a nightmare to get out.

Hotels were all full, and were full in the weeks leading up to (the summit). Limo services and taxi services, as you would imagine, did very well. Of course, police were all on overtime, so there was some economic benefit…

(But) because they put the perimeter around the Golden Triangle, the usual crowd wasn’t here, like down 70 per cent.

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